Thanks for the comments all.
I started this set in 2015 on somewhat of a whim. As I'd posted previously, 1956 is my favorite set from the 50s and probably of all post-war sets. As I started to expand my interest in vintage cards, 1954 seemed like a natural next step due to the rookies. Depending upon your level of OCD, it obviously can be quite the challenge due to centering. I knew based on my budget that 5/6 was about the best I'd be willing to spend in order to complete it, so that was actually somewhat of a blessing as I didn't have to struggle with deciding on grades or change my mind mid-set like I did with my 1956s.
I really like the design, the portraits are nice and I'm a pretty simple guy, so the solid color backgrounds also really appeal to me. It's just a really clean design in my view. In terms of centering, the left right centering is what I tried to focus on the most, top bottom didn't really bother my eye that much unless it was really extreme. As I've found with all my set builds, if you want to finish you either have to sacrifice more dollars or you've got to live with some imperfections. In this set, for me, those imperfections are some left right centering within the commons that's probably 80/20. Perfectly centered 1954s are really difficult to locate and carry quite the premium, which was one of the main reasons I didn't purse in 7s and 8s.
It's a moderately sized set at 250 cards, good star and rookie power, and obviously if you're patient the cards are out there. This set could be done in higher grades, but I've always felt like most mid-grade sets from the 50s can look really good and if you find the right star cards you can get eye appeal a grade up at least from the technical grades. The only real downside to this set is a couple of obvious missing names - Mantle and Musial aren't present. That helps the budget, but is a little bit of a bummer considering these guys were all timers. That was actually part of my decision of going to the 1956s as well since it had a Mantle - Stan is missing from all these early Topps set so that's a less important distinction, but something I did consider.
I don't know that I will look to upgrade this set, I feel like most of the stars have nice eye appeal and the cost of bumping them a grade feels more about a flip grade than eye appeal. I'm pretty content as it sits now.
To answer Ryan's question of "what's next?", I've still got 4-5 sets in the making currently at different stages of completion. A couple of them are getting pretty close (5 cards or less), and I've got a card in the mail right now that I'll unveil as soon as it's received. I also have some T206 back runs I'm SLOWLY slogging through, not sure how committed I am to those but we shall see, so far I'm hanging in and on many of them I don't have the "basic" backs yet so there are cards to pursue more actively.
At the moment, though, I'm really enjoying wrapping some of these multi-year projects up. It's giving me the opportunity to go back and look at these sets again and really appreciate the art and just revisit the collecting journey on them. It's also reminding me that patience is a virtue when you're building sets like these. I've been trying to run down this Jim Hughes for at least a year, and it's been more than 6 months since I bought another card for this set. There was one listed several weeks ago that I sent multiple offers on, but the seller wanted a premium for it. Then this one turned up, I feel I paid a slight premium for it, too, but it was still well less than I had offered on the other. $15-20 isn't a lot in the grand scheme of my overall cost in this set, but $5-20 per card over 250 cards isn't an insignificant number, either. I call it collecting calculus, and for me it's part of the fun of it.
I don't have a "major" project left in the works, as I'm well over 70% on most of my remaining set builds, not sure I want to take on a new big one right now but you never know what might catch my eye. It's part of what I love about the hobby, there's always something else!
|